


Strike Through Him

by Blame Canada (OneHitWondersAnonymous)



Category: South Park
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Bad Boys, Hints of Crenny, Light Angst, M/M, Minor Violence, One Shot, One-Sided Attraction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-13
Updated: 2016-11-13
Packaged: 2018-08-30 21:07:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8549119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OneHitWondersAnonymous/pseuds/Blame%20Canada
Summary: Craig was exceptionally good at figuring people out. Clyde was self-conscious and expressed himself through overdramatic, false narcissism.  Token liked to know small facts about people because it made him feel needed. Jimmy was actually, underneath his jokes, rather sad most of the time.
Try as he might, though, Craig could never crack Kenny McCormick, and he wanted to know why. 
Rated T for swearing and mild violence. Slight Crenny if you squint. One-Shot.





	

Humanity was dreadfully boring most of the time, Craig thought. Most people were forgettable save for a very short list he kept pressed to his chest, so close no one dared to get close enough to find it. It was a tiny piece of lined notebook paper with dog-eared corners and disintegrating creases. He was a very literal guy. He’d folded and unfolded it a thousand times, the overwhelming majority of those times just to read it over again and remind himself that he was still alive.

 

_Stripe_

_Clyde Donovan_

_Token Black_

_Jimmy Valmer_

_Tweek Tweak_

_Kenny McCormick_

He’d left out the obvious ones like his family, and left a large space after Tweek before he penned in McCormick’s name in reluctant cursive loops. He’d been hoping for other names to precede his, people he more willingly refused to forget. So far, no luck. There was a visible difference in his penmanship from when he first shakily wrote his guinea pig’s name at the top, marking his progress as a growing human being and also the passage of time. He hadn’t really wanted to put Kenny on his list, but at some point it had become unavoidable. Half of what he did in life was out of spite.

They’d been by the dumpsters in the back of the school when the thought first occurred to him. “I think you’re pretty memorable, McCormick,” he’d said in a moment of emotional clarity, after Kenny had chuckled to himself over some nonsense of people forgetting him again. _‘Again?’_

Kenny had just laughed, a smirk splitting his face with a giant grin that looked natural only on him. “Funny you’d say that, Tucker. You forget me constantly.” He’d assured him that he wasn’t the only one, but that only made Craig feel worse. They took drags of their cigarettes in tandem and moved on.

Craig had been truly puzzled by his wording however, and he spent too many hours attempting to decode it as he often did when Kenny spoke to him for real. He was like a spinner of riddles, and Craig had a compulsion to solve any riddle he was thrown. People were usually easy to decipher, if looked at close enough. Kenny was full of secrets though, and he came up empty each time the question wandered to the front of his brain. This frustrated him to no end.

After that Craig had been forced to notice that he paid attention to Kenny more than he’d like to admit. He had blond hair and blue eyes and was missing a tooth, but he noticed more than physical attributes. He once tapped his pen in the same rhythm every day in math class for a month, and he covered his mouth when he laughed half the time even though his coat usually covered it for him. Sometimes he rolled to the tips of his toes when he knew he was pressing Craig’s buttons, that wry smirk peeking past the fur lining of his parka. Craig felt lucky that they often smoked together at school, because it meant Kenny was forced to take his goddamn hood down for once and he could get a regular look at his face. He had a strong jawline and Craig thought it was honestly a loss for the universe that it was always hidden. Impulsive thoughts like that forever confused him.

One afternoon, once again commanded by his lack of a filter, he brought it back up. “Why did you say I always forget you?” Kenny looked confused and obviously hadn’t remembered, further reinforcing Craig’s frustration that he’d thought about this way too much. “A while ago, you said I always forget you, but I don’t. Why?”

He had looked to his feet and given Craig a glimpse at a Kenny without his usual bravado. He’d shrugged and reclaimed eye contact. “You probably wouldn’t believe me, so it’s not worth telling.” Craig had gotten angry, but didn’t care enough to argue or show it beyond flicking the ashes from his cigarette a little more forcefully and later stomping it out a little more violently. That was when he decided to scribble Kenny’s name onto his list. There was no way he’d ever forget him now, that arrogant son of a bitch. He felt a little guilty thinking of him that way, though, because nothing about how Kenny had replied hinted at arrogance. Instead it gave off a weird vibe of gentle sadness. It annoyed Craig that he felt guilty about anything, so he tried to shove it down. He wasn’t very successful.

Now every time he opened his list, Kenny’s name stared back at him as though glaring with bolded ink. Several times he considered crossing it out since it didn’t seem to compare to the other names at the top that he’d lovingly scrawled in, but something stopped him every time. He wanted it to be pure spite, but it was truthfully more than that, and he didn’t understand what. In all honesty, Kenny fascinated him. His secretive icy eyes shared more emotion than anyone he’d ever known. He wanted to uncover those secrets. He could read people, but he couldn’t read Kenny McCormick no matter how much he tried. He wondered briefly if he wasn’t human at all.

Kenny started showing up for their regular noon meetings in the back less and less. Craig wondered if he’d scared him off with his questioning. Maybe he’d been too forward. _‘Whatever,’_ he tried to convince himself, _‘it’s one less person to feel obligated to talk to.’_ He didn’t want him to leave, though. He guessed he was kind of fun to talk to, sometimes, and to look at.

It was an ordinary Tuesday stuck in its usual routine, but something felt off. There was an extra feeling of emptiness in his chest, besides the usual void that major depressive disorder left when his meds stopped working. Craig felt it when he woke up and it never waned as he walked into school lost in the crowd of chattering kids, or when he dragged his feet from class to class. He needed his fix early. Maybe his addiction to nicotine was finally getting to him. He skipped class at 11:30 instead of 12 and barely let the door close behind him before lighting one up.

He was surprised to find Kenny back in their usual place, alone. Maybe he'd just been coming earlier. The feeling in Craig’s chest intensified. He furrowed his brow.

“Careful Tucker, your face’ll get stuck like that. Trash smell worse than usual?” He grinned his usual cat-like grin but Craig’s mind was too occupied to respond to his bullshit. Something was especially wrong. 

“Did something happen to you?” He asked, and Kenny looked thoroughly startled at the question. _‘Weird, but okay.’_

“Whaddaya mean, Craigger?” He put on his usual lilt but he still looked uneasy. He didn’t bother to correct him on the annoying nickname. He was determined to figure him out.

“I don’t understand you.” He said, and Kenny’s eyes definitely widened at that. Craig was catching him off guard. It was exceedingly uncommon, as he usually rolled with any and all punches. He kept going. “I understand most people, but not you. Why is that?”

Kenny watched the smoke billow from his lips into the chilled air and waited, thinking over his words before he said them. Kenny didn’t usually think ahead. It was weirding Craig out. “You’re using a lot of words today. This must be difficult for you.”

“Cut the shit,” Craig snapped, and Kenny sobered up from his joking demeanor immediately. Craig would be lying if he said it didn’t bring him some satisfaction that he’d overpowered him so easily. “Something feels wrong about you and I need to know what. Did something happen to you or not?” Craig felt awfully bold today. He could tell Kenny was fighting the urge to tease him for sounding like a bitch. He didn’t care. His chest felt like it was going to implode. He inhaled deeply in an attempt to keep calm by focusing on his breath, but it only made his chest feel emptier.

Kenny sighed. “If you must know Craig, I died yesterday.” They rarely used each other’s first names. His words sunk in slowly.

“…What?”

“I said I died yesterday.” Kenny turned to face him head on, and the smile he had on was unnerving. It was unnatural and strange and held thousands more secrets than his eyes ever had. “Impaled by a flag pole. One of the more painful ones, I’ll admit. I died quickly though, so it’s fine.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Craig’s eyes narrowed. Nothing about Kenny’s body language said he was lying. No rolling on his feet, no sparkle to his eye, no cockiness in his grin.

Kenny ignored him. “Most people totally forget, but I guess you’d maybe feel something since you were there. This is new, though. Don’t worry, you’ll feel fine by tomorrow.”

“What do you mean, I was there?” A flash of anger consumed him and he rushed forward, gripping Kenny’s parka with both hands as he shoved him into the frigid brick wall. He mourned the loss of his cigarette half-smoked that he’d sacrificed in the moment. It died slowly in the snow. “What the fuck kind of bullshit are you spewing this time, McCormick? I’m not playing your games today.”

“I’m not playing a game.” Kenny looked grim. His icy eyes had hardened and were piercing his own, especially at the proximity they were at now. His grin had disappeared. Craig wasn’t pressing hard, but he had him pinned thoroughly in place. “I died. You saw. You went to sleep and forgot all about it, like everybody else. I woke up in my bed this morning as though nothing happened in the first place. This is the routine. It happened yesterday and it’ll happen again.”

Craig set his jaw to resist the animalistic urge to snarl at him. He was freaking him out. None of this made sense. He shoved him up into the wall a second time for emphasis. “Stop being cryptic, asshole.”

“I’m not being cryptic!” Kenny exclaimed, anger leaking into his usually relaxed features. “Look, you wanted the truth, I’m giving you the truth. I die all the time but I always come back, and when I do, nobody remembers. This has been going on since elementary. Are you honestly surprised? This is fucking South Park, nothing makes sense here.”

Craig stared him down, looking for any crack in his composure to reveal that this was some elaborate joke, but he came up empty. Kenny was adding secrets on top of secrets. He released him, and Kenny brushed off his arms as though he’d hurt him. He may have, he hadn’t cared to really hold back.

“Is that why you said I forget you all the time?”

“Congrats, you solved the puzzle. You’re such an asshole Craig, god.” He rolled each shoulder individually to stretch them. Craig didn’t reply.

His cigarette was long dead and noon was fast approaching, so he picked his backpack up from the side of the school and swung it onto his shoulder. Kenny watched every move with careful eyes. “If what you’re saying is true, I’m going to remember next time.”

Kenny laughed at him. “Yeah yeah, that’s what they all say. Good luck, Tucker, truly. I’d be majorly impressed.” He flipped him off as he pushed through the door and listened as his cackle trailed off behind him. His chest felt the slightest bit lighter the further away he got. _‘What the fuck is this twilight zone bullshit?’_ The rest of the day passed without incident and Kenny was right. Any emptiness tugging at his heart had disappeared by the next morning. They both refused to talk about it again.

 

* * *

 

 

Several weeks later, Craig woke with a start on a Friday morning. He waded through exhaustion to get to school, noting that he should probably go to the psychiatrist again as much as he hated her. His medications felt like they were wearing off again.

He sluggishly reached his locker and unlocked it through sheer muscle memory. When he swung the door open, he found a sheet of notebook paper stabbed through the hook at the center. He didn’t remember leaving it, and no one knew his combination. He tore it from the hook.

_In case I forget, Kenny died today. Bother him about it. Don’t play into his bullshit._

It was undoubtedly his handwriting. He stared at it for a long time in an attempt to find memory of its creation. Fuck Kenny McCormick, and all the trouble he went through because of him. He didn’t know what sort of nonsense he was pulling, but something in the back of his mind told him to take it seriously. He was going to be pissed if this was some sort of joke. He stuffed it in his pocket.

He spent the rest of the morning in a constant state of unease waiting for his regular noon break. Maybe it all had something to do with how hollow he felt, more so than usual. He really needed his nicotine. The scrap paper grated against his chest like a lead weight and felt as though it was invading on holy ground next to his list.

He burst through the double doors at exactly noon and wasted no time in seeking Kenny out, finding him just barely around the corner with his hood pulled fully from his head. His hair stuck out every which way but it still looked kind of nice, he noted for some reason. Kenny turned and caught him in the corner of his eye. He smirked and looked ready to spit out his regular casual harassment, but Craig beat him to the punch.

“Why did I write this?” Craig asked, pulling the sheet from his pocket and unfolding it carefully.

“What?” Kenny asked, but Craig ignored him again.

“According to me, you died yesterday. Why did I write this?” He straightened the paper and shoved it in Kenny’s hands, and Kenny looked down at it and up at Craig with a look of unchecked horror. He would never forget that face.

“Holy shit, it didn’t disappear.”

 

 

Craig grew several steps closer to understanding Kenny McCormick that day, but it wasn’t for the first time or the last.


End file.
